:.;,^i._-.-... 


BISHOP  ATKINSON 


AND 


THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  CONFEDERACY 


The  Rt.  Rev.  Jos.  Blount  Cheshire,  D.D. 

Bishop  of  North  CaroHna 


'i^m: 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2011  witii  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


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The  Rt.  Rev.  Thos.  Atkinson,  D.D.,LL.D. 


BISHOP  ATKINSON 

AND 

THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  CONFEDERACY 


BY 
The  Rt.  Rev.  Jos.  Blount  Cheshire,  D.D. 

Bishop  of  North  Carolina 


Edwards  &  Broughton  Printing  Company,  Raleigh,  N.  C. 
1909 


An  Address  Delivered  at  the  Laying  of  the  Corner 
Stone  of  the  Bishop  Atkinson  Memorial  Church, 
Charlotte,  IST.  C,  August  6th,  1909,  by  the  Rt.  Rev. 
the  Bishop  of  North  Carolina. 


Bishop  Atkinson  and  the  Church  in 
the  Confederacy. 


The  third  Bishop  of  N^orth  Carolina  occupied  a  somewhat 
unique  position  among  our  Southern  Bishops  in  his  attitude 
towards  the  difficult  problems  presented  to  the  Church,  both 
at  the  beginning  and  at  the  close  of  the  war  between  the 
States,  His  position  was  not  always  understood,  nor  did  his 
course  at  the  time  command  universal  approval.  But  it  was 
his  power  of  seeing  clearly,  and  of  reasoning  accurately, 
amid  the  clouds  and  clamor  of  those  perilous  times,  which, 
more  than  any  other  single  influence,  brought  the  Church  in 
peace  and  unity  and  unfeigTied  charity  through  trials  which 
otherwise  might  have  split  it  into  discordant  and  hostile  com- 
munions. Having  truth  with  him  he  dared  to  seem  to  stand 
alone ;  and  all  the  more  contentedly  and  patiently,  because 
his  love  and  confidence  towards  his  brethren  made  him  feel 
sure  that  the  truth  would  in  the  end  bring  all  together  again 
in  pursuit  of  their  great  and  holy  purpose. 

It  has  long  been  my  deliberate  judgment  that  in  his  wonder- 
ful combination  of  spiritual  elevation,  moral  earnestness, 
intellectual  power,  and  sound  judgment,  Bishop  Atkinson 
was  the  greatest  man  I  have  ever  known.  He  was  like  a 
little  child  in  purity  of  character,  in  perfect  sincerity  and  un- 
afi"ectedness.  He  did  not  condescend  to  the  lowly,  because 
his  generous  love  and  genuine  sympathy  saw  all  men  on  the 
level  of  a  redeemed  humanity.  He  was  the  kindest  and 
most  charming  of  companions,  with  a  sweet  and  gentle  humor, 
which  insensibly  reconciled  and  harmonized  the  possible  dis- 
cordances and  incongruities  of  the  most  heterogeneous  gather- 
r^  ing;  and  yet  there  Avas  ever  about  him  an  atmosphere  of 
,  unaffected  and  unconscious  goodness  and  purity, which  seemed 

^  to  make  a  base  thought  or  an  unlovely  word  unthinkable  and 

^  unspeakable  in  his  presence.    As  a  preacher  he  perfectly  illus- 

Q  trated  that  definition  of  eloquence  which  makes  it  consist  in 


i- 


convincing  the  mind  and  moving  the  heart,  rather  than  in 
pleasing  the  taste ;  which  makes  the  hearer  say  to  himself 
''How  true,  and  how  just!"  rather  than  "How  beautiful"  or 
"How  eloquent  I"  Absorbed  in  the  greatness  of  his  message, 
and  in  the  solemn  responsibility  of  delivering  it,  he  would 
have  scorned  the  artificial  graces  of  oratory,  if  he  had  thought 
at  all  about  them.  It  never  once  entered  his  mind  that  he 
was  preaching  an  eloquent  sermon.  I  have  never  forgotten 
the  impression  made  upon  me  when  I  was  about  fourteen 
years  old,  and  had,  with  a  familiarity  which  his  affectionate 
treatment  of  me  allowed,  repeated  to  him  what  a  rather 
shallow  clergyman  had  said  about  the  neglect  of  the  culti- 
vation of  oratory  by  our  clergy,  as  compared  with  some  other 
ministers.  Up  to  that  time  I  had  heard  little  preaching  ex- 
cept that  of  my  o%\m  father,  and  of  the  Bishop  himself;  and 
I  had  a  rather  high  opinion  of  the  quality  of  preaching  in 
the  Church.  I  confidently  expected  to  hear  the  Bishop  repel 
the  suggestion  that  our  clergy  were  in  any  respect  behind 
those  of  our  Christian  brethren  about  us.  He  looked  at  me 
for  a  moment  in  silence,  with  his  accustomed  expression  of 
serious  benignity,  and  then  said :  "My  son,  oratory  is  the  last 
thing  I  wish  to  see  my  clergy  cultivate."  I  did  not  under- 
stand him  then,  but  it  seems  to  me  now  a  speech  most 
characteristic  of  the  man,  and  of  the  preacher.  To  him  the 
great  things  in  preaching  were  so  very  great  and  absorbing 
that  he  never  got  down  to  the  level  of  a  cultivated  and  con- 
scious oratory.  And  therein  lay  his  excellence  as  a  speaker, 
and  that  real  eloquence  where  power  of  thought  and  earnest- 
ness of  purpose  are  by  the  heat  of  unaffected  love  fused  into 
a  living  word,  which  goes  straight  to  the  heart  and  mind  with 
the  irresistible  force  of  an  electric  shock.  To  me  he  was 
the  most  impressive  and  convincing  preacher  I  have  ever 
listened  to,  and  the  most  simple  and  unaffected  in  his  method 
and  in  his  manner. 

I  can  not   refrain   from  giving  here  two  interesting  ex- 
periences, told  me  by  Bishop  Atkinson  himself,  which  I  have 


never  seen  in  print,  or  heard  from  others.  His  first  charge 
was  in  Norfolk,  his  second  in  Lynchburg.  He  had  been 
born,  baptized,  and  brought  np,  in  the  Church,  as  had  his 
ancestors  before  him.  He  was  of  an  old  Virginia  Church 
family,  though  several  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  became 
Presbyterians  early  in  their  life.  In  his  youth  the  Church  in 
Virginia,  as  in  most  other  parts  of  the  country,  was  but  be- 
ginning to  learn  the  significance  and  the  value  of  her  own 
standards  of  doctrine  and  of  worship.  The  clergy  had  been 
so  few,  and  so  overburdened  with  the  care  of  widely  scattered 
congregations  and  individuals,  that  they  had  not  been  able  to 
put  into  use  the  devotional  methods  of  the  Church ;  and  many 
of  her  holy  and  edifying  services  had  been  neglected  and 
forgotten.  But  the  spirit  was  moving  upon  the  dry  bones, 
and  clergy  and  people  were  beginning  to  understand,  as  well 
as  to  love,  their  spiritual  mother,  and  more  and  more  to 
recover  their  lost  heritage,  lost  to  use,  but  preserved  for  them 
in  the  Prayer  Book. 

The  young  rector  at  Lynchburg,  in  his  diligent  study  of 
the  Prayer  Book,  observing  with  renewed  attention  its  vari- 
ous contents,  began  to  think  for  the  first  time  about  the 
Collects,  Epistles  and  Gospels  for  the  Saints'  Days,  and  other 
minor  festivals.  He  had  never  seen  them  used,  and  he  won- 
dered why  they  were  there,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  book, 
and  closely  associated  with  those  in  common  use.  And  then 
he  began  to  feel  that  they  must  be  there  because  the  Church 
intended  them  for  use.  This  seemed  a  strange  and  startling 
thought,  but  he  could  see  no  other  explanation.  He  did  not 
lack  courage  to  act  alone,  but  he  had  modesty  and  humility 
which  made  him  fear  to  set  himself  up  as  wiser  or  better 
than  his  brethren.    He  felt  that  he  must  seek  counsel. 

It  was  in  those  days  a  long  journey  from  Lynchburg  to 
Petersburg,  in  the  heavy  stage  coach,  or  by  private  convey- 
ance, along  the  ill-made  and  worse-kept  roads  of  mountain 
and  of  low  country.  But  this  question  had  to  be  settled ; 
and  so  he  took  that  journey  to  confer  with  a  kindred  spirit. 


G 

the  Rev.  jSTieholas  Cobbs,  rector  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  and 
afterwards  the  first  Bishop  of  Alabama,  a  ''Saint  of  the 
Southern  Church,"  as  he  has  justly  been  called.  It  came  out 
in  their  conference  that  the  same  thoughts  had  been  exercis- 
ing the  mind  and  conscience  of  good  brother  Cobbs;  and  he 
had  come  to  the  same  conclusion.  So,  then  and  there,  these 
two  agreed  that  from  that  time  on  they  would  endeavor  to 
observe  the  days  and  seasons  of  the  Church's  year,  as  they 
are  set  forth  in  the  Prayer  Book.  And  that,  Bishop  Atkin- 
son said  to  me,  was  the  beginning  of  the  observance  of  these 
minor  festivals  in  Virginia,  so  far  as  he  knew  and  believed. 

The  second  experience  which  he  related  to  me  brings  us 
a  little  nearer  to  our  subject.  When  the  Diocese  of  Indiana, 
in  1S43,  came  to  elect  its  first  Diocesan  Bishop,  the  choice 
fell  on  the  Rev.  Thomas  Atkinson,  rector  of  St.  Peter's 
Church,  Baltimore.  At  this  time  he  had  been  only  seven 
years  in  the  ministry,  and  had  come  in  from  the  bar,  with- 
out, I  believe,  the  advantage  of  a  course  in  a  theological 
seminary.  He  promptly  declined:  his  Nolo  Episcopari, 
being  the  simple  expression  of  his  sense  of  his  unprepared- 
ness.  The  Diocese  of  Indiana  then  chose  another  for  Bishop, 
who  also  declined.  Thereupon  Indiana  in  1846  again  called 
him.  This  was  quite  an  extraordinary  experience.  I  re- 
member no  similar  case,  except  that  of  the  diocese  of  Wash- 
ington, and  Bishop  Brent.  And  even  that  was  not  quite  the 
same,  for  Bishop  Brent  was  already  a  tried  man  in  the 
Episcopate,  and  a  proved  success. 

This  second  election  seemed  to  carry  with  it  a  strong  pre- 
sumption of  a  providential  call  to  that  work,  and  his  mind 
was  adjusting  itself  to  what  seemed  an  inevitable  duty,  when 
he  received  a  letter  from  an  old  Lynchburg  friend,  who  for 
some  years  had  been  living  in  Indiana.  This  friend  had  left 
Virginia  because  his  intense  dislike  of  slavery  had  made 
him  unwilling  any  longer  to  live  in  contact  with  it.  Bishop 
Atkinson  himself  had  a  strong  sense  of  the  disadvantages 
and  evils  of  slavery,  though  he  was  also  sensible  of  the  diffi- 


ciilty  of  finding  any  just  and  practicable  means  of  abolishing 
it  in  the  South.  He  had  freed  all  his  own  slaves  who  wished 
to  be  freed  and  to  go  to  the  free  States,  and  had  kept  only 
those  who  voluntarily  chose  to  remain  in  the  South.  His 
old  friend  wrote  expressing  the  pleasure  he  anticipated  in 
seeing  him  Bishop  of  Indiana,  and  begged  him  to  bring  his 
family  to  his  house,  and  to  make  his  house  his  home  there 
until  he  should  have  leisure  to  make  his  permanent  arrange- 
ments. He  then  added  that  the  Bishop  must  be  prepared  to 
live  and  work  in  a  community  where  the  feeling  against 
slavery  and  slave  owners  was  becoming  so  inflamed  and  bit- 
ter, that  the  writer  of  the  letter  as  a  Southern  man,  though 
opposed  to  slavery,  found  himself  in  a  painful  and  embar- 
rassing position. 

This  letter  caused  him  to  decline  for  a  second  time  the  call 
of  Indiana.  Little  as  he  was  attached  to  the  institution  of 
slavery,  and  thankful  as  he  could  have  been  to  see  it  justly 
and  peacefully  abolished,  he  felt  quite  sure  that,  if  in  Indiana 
his  friend  could  not  live  in  comfort  on  account  of  the  state 
of  public  feeling,  he  could  not  hope  to  be  happy  and  con- 
tented in  his  work,  since  he  would  probably,  as  time  went  on, 
find  himself  more  and  more  out  of  sympathy  with  his  people 
on  the  great  and  absorbing  question  of  the  day. 

In  the  year  1853  the  Diocese  of  South  Carolina  was  to 
elect  a  Bishop.  There  was  a  strong  feeling  in  favor  of  elect- 
ing the  Rev.  Dr.  Atkinson.  But  rumors  had  reached  that 
State  as  to  his  feeling  about  slavery,  and  prominent  persons 
in  that  Diocese  communicated  with  him,  asking  for  an  ex- 
pression of  his  views  on  the  subject.  He  replied  promptly 
in  effect  that  he  felt  slavery  to  be  a  disadvantage,  though  he 
could  not  see  how  to  get  rid  of  it.  But  he  declared  that  if 
it  came  to  a  choice  between  slavery  and  the  Union,  he  should 
say,  let  slavery  go,  and  preserve  the  Union  of  the  States. 
That  is,  as  I  remember,  the  substance  of  his  reply.  This 
letter,  he  said,  prevented  his  being  elected  Bishop  of  South 
Carolina  ;  and  Bishop  Davis  was  chosen.    My  old  friend  Gen. 


8 

Thomas  F.  Drayton,  told  me  that  he  was  a  member  of  the 
South  Carolina  Diocesan  Convention  of  1853,  and  well  re- 
membered the  letter  of  Bishop  Atkinson,  which  was  made 
known  to  the  members  of  the  Convention,  he  himself  having 
seen  and  read  it;  and  he  said  but  for  that  letter  Bishop 
Atkinson  would  certainly  have  been  their  choice  for  Bishop. 

''So,"  Bishop  Atkinson  said  to  me,  "I  was  not  Bishop  of 
Indiana,  because  I  was  not  sufficiently  opposed  to  slavery ; 
and  I  was  not  Bishop  of  South  Carolina,  because  I  was  not 
sufficiently  in  favor  of  it." 

And  that  is  an  example  of  how  he  went,  not  with  one 
party  or  with  the  other;  but  thought  his  own  straight  clear 
thought,  and  spoke  out  his  own  honest  words,  and  acted  upon 
his  own  solid  convictions;  modest  and  quiet  and  gentle,  but 
absolutely  fixed  and  immovable  in  loyalty  to  his  own  con- 
science and  to  his  own  judgment. 

And  so,  throughout  the  trials  and  perplexities  of  war,  and 
the  overturning  of  established  order,  and  the  subversion  of 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  institutions  and  precedents,  we  find 
in  him  the  same  unperturbed  spirit,  the  same  serene,  un- 
ruffled temper,  the  same  clear  thoughts,  the  same  loyalty  to 
well-considered  principles,  and  the  same  safe  and  solid  judg- 
ment. In  the  crisis  produced  by  the  secession  of  the  South- 
ern States  and  the  outbreak  of  war,  violently  rending  the 
country  in  twain,  and  separating  the  Southern  Dioceses  from 
those  in  the  North,  he  seems  to  have  stood  alone  among  the 
Soithern  Bishops  in  his  clear  and  accurate  views  as  to  the 
status  of  the  Dioceses  thus  actually  isolated.  In  that  still 
more  critical  moment,  after  the  war  was  at  an  end,  he  again 
stood  alone  in  the  policy  which  guided  his  Diocese. 

The  view  of  the  other  Southern  Bishops  came  practically 
to  this — that  the  secession  of  a  State  from  the  Union  was 
ipso  facto  the  separation  of  the  Diocese  from  the  Church  in 
the  United  States ;  that,  having  ceased  to  be  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  they  could  no  longer  as  individuals  or  as 
Dioceses  be  connected  with  the  Church  in  the  United  States, 


9 

but  were  at  once  separated  from  it,  without  any  action  of 
their  own,  and  freed  from  the  obligations  of  its  Constitution 
and  Canons.  Bishop  Atkinson  denied  this.  While  granting 
that  the  separation  produced  by  civil  and  political  acrion 
might  justify,  and  even  require,  a  separate  organization  for 
the  Church  in  the  South,  he  maintained  that  the  mere  action 
of  the  States  could  have  no  effect  whatever  i'pso  facto  upon 
the  unity  of  the  Church;  and  consequently  that,  until  the 
Southern  Dioceses  should  as  such  take  action,  they  were  still 
part  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States. 
This  position  he  put  forth  and  argued  with  great  force  in  his 
Convention  addresses,  at  Morganton  in  1861,  and  at  Chapel 
Hill  in  1862.     In  the  latter  of  these  he  says: 

"It  is  certain  that  the  Diocese  of  ISTorth  Carolina  was,  in 
the  autumn  of  1860,  a  part  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  United  States,  and  it  is  equally  certain  that 
that  Church  has  done  no  act  since  to  exscind  it,  nor  has  the 
Diocese  by  its  own  act  withdrawn  itself.  If  then  it  be  not 
now  a  part  of  the  same  Church,  it  must  have  been  cut  off  by 
virtue  of  the  political  change  produced  by  the  secession  of 
the  State.  But  could  the  State,  by  any  political  act,  destroy 
the  organization  of  the  Church,  and  annul  its  Constitution 
and  Canons,  which  were  its  bonds  of  union  with  the  Church 
in  the  United  States  ?  If  it  be  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ, 
or  a  part  of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  (and  which  of  its 
members  will  declare  it  not  to  be  ?),  then  the  State  can  neither 
make  nor  unmake  it,  alter  or  amend  it,  directly  or  indirectly ; 
for  Jesus  Christ  said :  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world." 
His  Church,  so  far  from  being  the  creature  of  the  State,  or 
the  subject  of  the  State,  or  in  the  power  of  the  State,  like 
clay  in  the  hands  of  the  potter,  to  receive  any  shape  the  State 
may  choose  to  give, — His  Church,  instead  of  being  thus 
ductile  and  malleable,  was  planted  in  spite  of  the  State,  and 
grew  up  and  flourished  under  the  most  vehement  and  obsti- 
nate assaults  and  opposition  of  the  State.  He,  then,  that 
proclaims  that  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  is  changed 


10 

in  its  organization  and  laws  by  the  mere  act  of  the  State, 
does,  however  little  he  may  intend  it,  yet  in  effect  declare 
that  it  may  be  a  very  respectable  religious  denomination, 
wealthy,  refined,  and  orderly,  but  that  it  is  no  part  of  the 
Church  of  Christ;  and  does  in  effect  advise  all  its  members, 
if  they  desire  to  partake  of  the  blessings  of  the  Church  of 
Christ,  to  come  out  of  that  Protestant  Episcopal  Society  and 
go  elsewhere  for  those  blessings.  I  do  not  see,  then,  how 
any  considerate  man,  who  does  believe  in  the  authority  and 
mission  of  the  Church,  can  suppose  that  its  organization  has 
been  broken  up  by  the  mere  act  of  the  State.     *     *     * 

"We  do  not  lose  our  rights  and  interest,  then,  in  that 
Church,  by  ceasing  to  be  citizens  of  the  United  States,  but 
only  when  we  voluntarily  withdraw  from  that  Ecclesiastical 
organization  and  establish  another  for  ourselves.  This,  I 
conceive,  we  had  the  right  to  do,  even  if  the  United  States 
had  not  been  divided,  were  there  sufficient  cause  for  it;  and 
that  division  does  itself  furnish  sufficient  cause.  In  the 
meantime,  according  to  my  belief,  until  we  form  a  new 
organization,  the  old  continues  to  subsist.  There  is  no  inter- 
regnum of  anarchy.  We  are  not  left  weltering  in  chaos, 
without  a  Constitution,  without  any  binding  regulations  for 
the  consecration  of  Bishops,  for  the  ordination  of  clergy- 
men, for  the  enforcement  of  discipline,  so  that  each  man  is 
free  to  do  what  is  right  in  his  own  eyes.  God  forbid  we 
should  ever  be  in  such  a  condition." 

This  view  of  the  question  was  not  popular  in  the  South. 
Inflamed  with  all  the  passions  engendered  by  civil  strife,  the 
members  of  the  Church,  being  in  large  proportion  leaders  of 
public  sentiment,  and  identified  with  the  Southern  cause, 
chafed  at  the  idea  of  any  connection  with  the  invading  enemy. 
Bishop  Polk,  of  Louisiana,  in  an  address  to  his  Diocese, 
maintained  in  its  fullest  extent  the  view  reprobated  by  Bish- 
op Atkinson ;  and  declared  that  by  the  secession  of  the  State 
of  Louisana,  ipso  facto,'  the  Diocese  of  Louisana  was  sepa- 
rated from  the  Church  in  the  United  States,  and  stood  iso- 


11 

lated,  without  organic  couuection  with  any  other  Church  or 
Diocese.  This  frank  and  bold  statement  shocked  many 
minds,  but  logically  it  differed  but  little,  so  far  as  I  have 
been  able  to  learn,  from  the  position  taken  by  most  of  the 
Southern  Bishops.  Bishop  Elliott,  of  Georgia,  declared  that 
by  the  secession  of  the  Southern  States  the  Southern  Bishops 
had  ceased  to  be  Bishops  of  the  United  States,  apparently 
meaning  that  by  necessary  inference  they  had  ceased  to  be 
Bishops  of  the  Church  in  the  United  States.  And  this 
seemed  to  be  the  general  attitude  of  the  Southern  Bishops, 
so  far  as  I  can  make  out. 

As  the  state  of  the  country  did  in  fact  make  a  separation, 
and  a  cessation  of  all  ordinary  intercourse  and  communi- 
cation, and  as  Bishop  Atkinson  recognized  the  necessity  of 
withdrawing  from  the  Church  in  the  United  States,  and 
forming  an  organization  conterminous  with  the  bounds  of  the 
Confederacy,  the  distinction  between  his  position  and  that  of 
other  Southern  Bishops  may  seem  merely  doctrinaire.  But 
it  shows  how  carefully  and  clearly  he  thought  out  his  po- 
sition, and  how  faithfully  he  stood  by  his  convictions.  And 
this  clear-sightedness  into  essential  principles  gave  him  a 
courage  in  action,  and  gave  him  a  moral  weight,  which  was 
of  vast  moment  in  the  end. 

In  the  meantime  his  view  was  proved  to  be  not  merely 
doctrinaire  by  two  occurrences,  which  subjected  him  for  the 
time  to  serious  misrepresentation  and  distress.  Some  time 
in  1861,  after  ISTorth  Carolina  had  seceded,  he  received  the 
canonical  notice  of  the  election  of  the  Eev.  Wm.  Bacon 
Stevens,  as  Assistant  Bishop  of  Pennsylvania.  As  the  Dio- 
cese of  North  Carolina  had  as  yet  taken  no  action  towards 
changing  its  relations  with  the  Church  of  the  United  States, 
he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  signify  to  the  Presiding  Bishop 
his  canonical  consent  to  this  election.  In  March,  1862,  still 
before  any  action  by  this  Diocese,  he  was  asked  to  take  part 
in  the  consecration  of  his  friend,  the  Eev.  Richard  H. 
Wilmer,  as  Bishop  of  Alabama.     Dr.  Wilmer  could  not  be 


.12 

consecrated  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution  and  Canons 
of  the  Church  in  the  United  States ;  and  the  proposed  Con- 
stitution of  the  Church  in  the  Confederate  States  had  not  yet 
been  ratified.  Bishop  Atkinson  thought  that  the  constitu- 
tionality and  regularity  of  the  transmission  of  the  Episcopal 
Commission  were  of  too  much  importance  to  be  set  aside 
merely  to  avoid  a  few  months'  delay.  He  therefore  felt 
obliged  to  decline  to  take  part  in  the  consecration  of  a  Bish- 
op, which  he  regarded  as  unauthorized. 

These  two  cases,  first  his  concurrence  in  the  election  and 
consecration  of  a  Northern  Bishop,  and  then  his  refusal  to 
approve  or  to  participate  in  the  consecration  of  a  Southern 
Bishop,  gave  occasion  for  much  misconception  and  misrepre- 
sentation of  his  position  and  feelings,  and  were  a  cause  of 
much  pain  and  annoyance  to  him.  They  afford,  however, 
another  example  of  his  high  loyalty  to  his  convictions,  and 
of  the  calm  confidencewith  which  he  followed  the  conclusions 
of  his  judgment. 

This  embarrassing  situation  was  ended,  when  on  the  16th 
day  of  May,  1862,  the  Convention  of  the  Diocese  ratified  the 
Constitution  of  the  Church  in  the  Confederate  States,  and 
JSTorth  Carolina  took  its  place  among  the  Dioceses  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  Confederate  States  of 
America. 

In  the  meeting  at  Columbia,  South  Carolina,  in  Octobet, 
1861,  in  the  proj)osed  Constitution,  the  Rev.  Richard  Hines, 
an  old  North  Carolina  clergyman,  then  representing  the  Dio- 
cese of  Tennessee,  moved  to  substitute  the  words  "Reformed 
Catholic"  in  the  place  of  the  words  "Protestant  Episcopal," 
in  the  name  of  the  Church;  and  Bishops  Atkinson,  Otey 
and  Green  voted  for  the  change.  We  may  almost  say  that 
this  was  a  North  Carolina  vote,  as  only  one  other  vote  besides 
these  four  was  cast  for  it,  and  that  by  one  who  had  been  a 
clergyman  of  this  Diocese ;  though  our  own  clerical  and  lay 
representatives  at  Columbia  voted  in  the  negative. 

During  the  continuance  of  the  war  Bishop  Atkinson  pur- 


13 

sued  diligently  the  round  of  his  administrative  and  pastoral 
duties ;  visiting  his  parishes  and  missions,  comforting  the 
bereaved  and  afflicted,  preaching  in  the  camps  to  the  soldiers, 
and,  after  the  death  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Drane,  assuming  the 
rectorship  of  St.  James'  Church,  Wilmington,  in  addition 
to  his  other  duties. 

I  wish  I  had  space  to  give  the  prayers  which  from  time  to 
time  he  put  forth  to  express  the  devout  hopes  and  wants  of 
his  people  under  their  sore  burdens.  In  heart  and  mind  he 
was  at  one  with  them  in  all  their  trials,  sufferings,  aspir- 
ations, hopes  and  sorrows.  And  through  all  he  had  his  people 
and  his  Diocese  with  him.  They  appreciated  his  great  quali- 
ties, and  common  sufferings  increased  their  mutual  confidence 
and  love.  His  Diocese  and  his  Convention  felt  safe  in  taking 
their  stand  upon  the  ground  selected  by  their  leader. 

When  the  end  came  he  had  his  share  of  the  personal  suffer- 
ings and  outrage  with  which  the  invading  and  now  victorious 
army  emphasized  their  triumph.  His  own  simple  account  is 
most  characteristic.  Speaking  of  the  approach  of  General 
Sherman''s  army  to  Wadesboro,  where  he  then  resided  with  his 
family,  he  says:  "I  thought  it  right  to  remain,  and  not  to 
leave  my  household  exposed  to  outrage,  and  without  any 
protection.  I  supposed,  too,  that  my  age  and  office  wOuld 
secure  me  against  outrage.  In  this,  it  turned  out  that  I  was 
mistaken.  I  was  robbed  of  property  of  considerable  value, 
and  that  it  might  be  accomplished  more  speedily  and  com- 
pletely, a  pistol  was  held  at  my  head.  While  I  do  not  affect 
to  be  indifferent,  either  to  the  outrage,  or  to  the  loss  I  have 
sustained,  I  felt  at  the  time,  and  still  feel,  that  it  is  a  weighty 
counterbalancing  consideration,  that,  partaking  of  the  evils 
which  the  people  of  my  charge  have  been  called  upon  to 
undergo,  I  could  the  more  truly  and  deeply  sympathize  with 
them  in  their  sufferings."  I  have  been  told,  I  can  not  be 
sure  whether  by  the  Bishop  himself,  or  by  some  other,  that 
when  the  soldier  held  his  cocked  pistol  at  the  Bishop's  head, 
and  commanded  him  to  s^ive  him  his  watch,  the  Bishop  calmly 


14 

but  firmly  refused  to  do  so.  The  rufiian  then  reached  down 
from  his  horse  and  seized  the  watch,  and  took  it  from  him. 
He  offered  no  resistance — to  have  done  so  would  have  been 
both  useless  and  unseemly — but  he  would  not  for  fear  give 
up  his  property  by  his  own  act.  He  could  be  robbed,  but 
he  could  not  be  intimidated. 

I  must  endeavor  very  briefly  to  summarize  the  events  of 
September  and  October,  1865 ;  when,  as  all  must  now  con- 
fess, Bishop  Atkinson  was  the  instrument  in  God's  good 
providence,  for  reuniting  the  divided  Church,  and  so  healing 
the  breach  that  not  even  a  scar  remains  to  show  there  was 
ever  a  wound.  This  was  peculiarly  the  work  of  Bishop 
Atkinson,  and  of  his  Diocese  under  his  guidance.  His 
friend,  and  nephew  by  marriage,  Bishop  Lay,  was  in  all 
things  like-minded  with  him  in  this  critical  period ;  and 
together  they  represented  the  Southern  Church  at  the  General 
Convention  of  1865  in  Philadelphia.  But  Bishop  Lay  had 
no  Diocese  behind  him,  and  his  own  case,  with  that  of  Bish- 
op Wilmer,  of  Alabama,  constituted  one  of  the  problems 
to  be  solved  in  order  to  effect  a  reunion.  He  had  before  the 
war  been  Missionary  Bishop  of  the  Southwest.  During  the 
war,  by  the  Church  in  the  Confederate  States,  he  had  been 
made  Bishop  of  the  new  Diocese  of  Arkansas.  He  did  not 
therefore  occupy  an  assured  position  for  mediating  between 
the  two  parties. 

And  now  that  soundness  of  judgment  and  clear  view  into 
the  true  principles  of  Church  polity,  which  Bishop  Atkin- 
son had  showed  in  1861,  became  manifest.  Of  all  the  South- 
ern Bishops  he  was  the  least  embarrassed  or  trammeled 
by  the  results  of  the  war.  Those  who  had  maintained,  in 
theory  or  in  practice,  that  political  separation,  ipso  facto, 
produced,  nay  effected,  ecclesiastical  division,  had  to  face  the 
correlative  of  that  proposition — namely,  that  the  restoration 
of  civil  union  necessitated,  if  it  did  not  ipso  facto  restore, 
ecclesiastical  unity.  He,  on  the  contrary,  had  maintained, 
and  had  acted  upon  the  principle,  that  political  union  or  dis- 


15 

union  did  not  of  itself  at  all  affect  the  Constitution  or  organi- 
zation of  the  Church.  Therefore,  when  the  war  ended,  and 
the  union  of  the  States  was  assured,  his  position  was  no  ways 
aifected.  His  hands  were  free,  and  his  mind  was  also  free. 
He  had  no  need  to  struggle  to  reconstruct  his  principles,  or 
to  cast  about  how  he  might  save  the  remnants  from  the  wreck. 
Party  heat  had  not  affected  his  judgment  in  1861,  and  he 
came  to  the  consideration  of  the  situation  in  1865,  with  the 
same  calm  mind  and  clear  vision.  He  said  to  his  people,  in 
effect:  The  war  is  over.  Bitter  as  is  the  confession — we 
have  failed — and  all  the  States  are  again  united  under  the 
authority  of  the  Federal  Government.  We  acted  for  the  best. 
We  have  no  regrets,  and  we  make  no  apologies.  We  formed 
the  Church  in  the  Confederate  States,  because  we  found  it 
necessary  to  do  so,  W^e  did  not  wait  to  ask  permission  from 
the  Dioceses  in  the  IsTorth.  The  emergency  was,  and  is,  the 
explanation  and  the  justification  of  our  course.  Facing  the 
present  situation,  and  feeling,  as  we  did  in  1861,  that  we  have 
the  right  to  act  freely,  and  are  not  controlled  or  constrained 
by  the  course  of  political  events,  we  find  that  the  interests 
of  the  Church,  and  consistency  with  our  own  principles  and 
professions,  require  us  to  go  back  to  the  Church  in  the  United 
States.  We  believe  our  sister  Dioceses  will  follow  us,  but  we 
must  act  upon  our  own  convictions.  We  can  not  wait  because 
others  are  so  situated  that  they  can  not  act  with  us  at  this 
moment.  We  can  act  at  once,  and  we  believe  it  is  for  the 
interests  of  all  that  we  should  act  at  once.  And  so  ITorth 
Carolina  showed  then,  as  perhaps  she  has  at  other  times 
shown,  that  she  can  be  prompt  when  the  occasion  calls  for  it, 
though  sometimes  she  is  slow. 

In  Christ  Church,  Kaleigh,  September  13,  1865,  Bishop 
Atkinson  met  his  Convention,  and  advised  the  election  of 
deputies  to  attend  the  General  Convention,  which  was  to  meet 
in  Philadelphia  just  three  weeks  from  that  day.  He  had 
received  kindly  assurances  of  welcome  from  prominent 
Churchmen  in  the  ISTorth.     He  knew  that  no  other  Southern 


16 

Diocese  could  be  fully  represented.  He  felt  that  it  was  of 
vast  moment  that  the  Southern  Church  should  be  represented, 
and  he  put  this  view  of  the  subject  before  his  Convention. 
His  Convention  trusted  him,  and  they  followed  their  leader. 
My  friends,  the  greatest  military  critic  who  has  written  upon 
the  war  between  the  States,  says  that  one  great  advantage 
the  Southern  soldier  had  over  the  Northern  soldier  in  all  the 
early  campaigns  of  that  war,  was  that  he  trusted  his  leader. 

But  it  was  not  an  easy  thing  to  follow  our  great  Bishop 
in  that  sad  and  critical  year,  1865.  We  now  see  that  it  was 
well  done:  but  our  fathers  could  not  see:  they  could  only 
hope  and  believe.  In  that  Convention  the  Bishop  was  op- 
posed by  some  of  the  best  and  noblest  men  who  have  ever 
served  at  our  altars  or  worshiped  before  them.  They  feared 
that  the  Bishop's  desire  for  the  unity  of  the  Church  was 
misleading  his  judgment.  The  strength  of  this  feeling  is 
indicated,  I  think,  by  the  fact  that  when  the  Convention  had 
voted  to  refer  the  Bishop's  proposition  to  a  special  committee, 
the  Rev.  Alfred  A.  Watson,  one  of  the  best  and  truest  men 
who  ever  sat  in  our  Convention,  moved  ''that  this  committee 
l)e  aj^pointed  by  election."  The  motion  was  rejected;  and 
then  the  Bishop  showed  his  quality  by  giving  the  mover  the 
next  to  the  highest  place  on  the  committee.  When  the  Com- 
mittee reported  favorably  upon  the  Bishop's  proposition,  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Watson  brought  in  a  minority  report,  and  a  small 
but  earnest  and  able  minority  of  the  Convention  seem  to 
have  supported  him  in  opposing  what  they  felt  to  be  a  hasty 
and  undigiiified  return.  But  the  Convention  stood  very 
solidly  by  the  Bishop,  having  in  it  some  of  the  ablest  men  of 
the  State;  and  the  Reverend  Doctors  Mason,  Cheshire,  Hub- 
bard, and  Hodges,  of  the  clergy,  with  the  Hon.  Wm.  H. 
Battle,  Mr.  Richard  H.  Smith,  Mr.  Kemp  P.  Battle,  and 
Col.  Robt.  Strange,  of  the  laity,  were  elected  dejDuties  to  the 
General  Convention. 

In  my  judgment  that  ac'tion  of  the  Convention  of  the  Dio- 
cese of  North  Carolina  was  the  critical  and  decisive  act  by 


lY 

which  the  happy  course  of  our  Church  history  after  the  wai- 
was  determined.  Bishop  Atkinson  could  not  have  acted  the 
part  he  did  act,  nor  would  his  action  have  had  the  effect  whiv^h 
it  did  have,  but  for  the  fact  that  he  had  his  diocese  with  him 
in  mind  and  heart,  and  also  visibly  represented  in  the  House 
of  Deputies,  with  its  full  quota  of  able  and  distinguished  men 
whose  names  stood  for  something  in  Church  and  State.  Great 
as  he  was  in  himself,  it  showed  that  he  did  not  represent 
only  himself,  but  that  back  of  him  there  was  in  the  Southern 
Church  a  great  body  of  clergymen  and  laymen,  loyal  to  the 
Church,  and  ready  to  face  bravely  present  duty,  in  spite  of 
the  past,  if  they  should  meet  the  same  loyalty  and  mag- 
nanimity in  the  Churchmen  of  the  North. 

And  who  shall  doubt  that  the  presence  of  Bishop  Atkin- 
son and  Bishop  Lay  and  those  other  Southern  Churchmen, 
for  Tennessee  and  Texas  sent  also  partial  delegations,  called 
out  that  generous  spirit  with  which  the  General  Convention 
met  them ! 

But,  -I  say,  it  was  not  an  easy  thing  which  those  men  did 
who  went  to  Philadelphia  from  this  Diocese  in  October,  1865. 
They  went  with  anxious  hearts,  and  against  the  judgment  of 
some  of  our  best  men.  I  well  remember  how  my  uncle,  the 
late  Governor  Clark,  of  Edgecombe,  one  of  the  gentlest  and 
most  generous  of  men,  went  with  my  father  to  the  railway 
station  the  morning  he  was  leaving  for  Philadelphia,  and 
begged  him  not  to  go.  "At  least  wait,"  he  said,  ''until  the 
other  Southern  Dioceses  can  act  with  us."  And  in  Peters- 
burg, where  my  father  stopped  in  passing  with  an  old  parish- 
ioner, the  rector  of  St.  Paul's  Church  called  on  him,  and  was 
politely  humorous  and  sarcastic  in  suggesting  the  kind  of 
reception  he  might  find  awaiting  him.  The  way  of  the  peace- 
maker is  not  always  peaceful  or  pleasant.  Our  carnal  mind 
loves  a  fight,  and  hates  to  give  it  up. 

I  have  no  time  to  repeat  the  story  of  the  Convention  of 
1865,  of  how  nobly  and  beautifully  our  brethren  of  the  :N'orth 
responded  to  the  confidence  shown  in  them  by  those  who  had 


18 

come  from  the  South  to  this  meeting.  It  has  often  been  told, 
and  bj  none  better  or  more  authoritatively  than  by  Bishop 
Lay,  in  his  admirable  memorial  sermon  preached  before  our 
Convention  of  1881  in  Christ  Church,  Raleigh. 

There  again  came  forth  Bishop  Atkinson's  wonderful 
clarity  of  thought  and  accuracy  and  felicity  of  expression. 
"A  word  spoken  in  season,  how  good  it  is !"  That  Conven- 
tion, coming  at  the  end  of  a  great  war,  had  to  thank  God 
for  the  restoration  of  peace.  It  was  a  necessity  of  the  situ- 
ation. And  they  were  J^orthern  men ;  and  most  of  them  be- 
lieved in  their  hearts  that  slavery  had  been  a  national  dis- 
gi'ace  and  curse,  and  that  secession  was  a  crime  against  the 
life  of  the  nation.  Whatever  we  may  think,  let  us  be  fair- 
minded  and  generous  enough  to  see  just  how  they  looked  at 
it.  They  were  thankful  for  the  destruction  of  all  that  system 
of  labor  and  of  politics  which  had  gone  down  in  the  issues 
of  the  contest.  And  now  when  they  come  to  have  their 
thanksgiving  they  must  find  some  terms  in  which  without 
offense  they  may  ask  their  Southern  brethren  to  join.  And 
after  much  labor  and  travail,  and  a  generous  effort  to  sup- 
press their  own  feelings,  in  deference  to  their  Southern 
brethren,  they  had  managed  to  reduce  all  their  joy  and 
triumph  to  a  simple  expression  of  thanksgiving  for  the  res- 
toration of  peace  and  unity  under  the  restored  national  au- 
thority. Could  more  than  this  have  been  expected  from 
ordinary  mortals  ? 

And  then  the  great  and  good  Southern  Bishop,  whom 
many  of  them  loved  and  admired,  and  whom  one  of  their  own 
Dioceses  had  twice  elected  as  its  Bishop — he  stood  up  and 
said,  in  his  noble  and  gracious  but  uncompromising  manner : 
We  can  not  join  you  in  such  a  thanksgiving,  but  we  can  join 
you  in  thanking  God  for  the  restoration  of  peace  to  the 
country  and  unity  to  the  Church. 

And  they  accepted  his  offer ;  and  they  gave  thanks  as  he 
prescribed.  I  profess  to  you,  my  dear  friends  and  brethren, 
that  my  admiration  for  the  courage  and  wisdom  and  grace 


19 

of  our  great  Bishop,  is  almost  surpassed  by  my  gratitude  to 
God  our  Father  for  the  magnanimity  and  Christian  brotherli- 
ness  which  so  nobly  responded  to  his  appeal.  And  was  ever 
a  more  eloquent  word  spoken  by  a  Bishop  of  the  American 
Church  ? 

As  I  think  of  him  unmoved  in  his  serene  clearness  of 
thought  and  purity  of  purpose  amid  all  civil  discords  and 
party  strife,  and  then  equally  calm,  dignified,  unfearing, 
while  the  ruffian  soldier  threatens  his  life,  I  am  reminded  of 
the  words  of  the  Latin  poet: 

"  Just,  in  high  purpose  fixed,  this  man  nor  breath 
Malign  of  threatening  people,  nor  the  face 
Of  lawless  force,  from  his  firm  mind  may  shake."* 

And  then  when  I  think  of  the  divine  faith  and  love  which 
lay  underneath  all  this  firmness,  and  gave  beauty  to  that  life, 
and  was  in  him  an  unfailing  spring  of  inward  peace  and 
hope  and  refreshing,  those  familiar  English  lines  seem  to 
suggest  themselves,  as  perfectly  fulfilled  and  justified  in  his 
life  and  character: 

"  Like  some  tall  cliff  that  lifts  its  awful  form, 

Swells  from  the  vale  and  midway  leaves  the  storm. 
Though  round  its  breast  the  rolling  clouds  are  spread, 
Eternal  sunshine  settles  on  his  head." 

Raleigh,  N.  C,  August  3,  1909. 


Justum  et  tenacem  propositi  virum 
Non  civium  ardor  prava  jubentium, 
Non  vultus  instantis  tyranni, 
Mente  quatit  solida. 

— Horace,  Odes  III  3. 


20 


SPECIAL  PRAYERS   SET  FORTH   FOR  USE  BY 
BISHOP  ATKINSON. 

In  the  Spnng  of  1861. 

Almightj  God,  our  Heavenly  Father,  in  Whose  hands  are 
the  hearts  of  men  and  the  issues  of  events,  and  Who  hast  gra- 
ciously promised  to  hear  the  prayers  of  those  who,  in  an 
humble  spirit,  and  with  true  faith,  call  upon  Thee;  be 
pleased,  we  beseech  Thee,  favorably  to  look  upon  and  bless 
the  Governor  of  this  Commonwealth,  its  General  Assembly 
now  in  session,  and  the  people  over  whom  they  are  chosen 
to  rule.  Possess  their  minds  with  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and 
sound  understanding,  so  that,  in  these  days  of  trouble  and  per- 
plexity, they  may  be  able  to  perceive  the  right  path,  and 
steadfastly  to  walk  therein.  So  enlighten,  direct  and 
strengthen  them,  we  pray  Thee,  that  they,  being  hindered 
neither  by  the  fear  of  man,  nor  by  the  love  of  the  praise  of 
men,  nor  by  malice,  nor  by  ambition,  nor  by  any  other  evil 
passion,  but  being  mindful  of  Thy  constant  superintendence, 
of  the  awful  Majesty  of  Thy  righteousness  and  of  the  strict 
account  they  must  hereafter  give  to  Thee,  may  in  counsel, 
word  and  deed,  aim  supremely  at  the  fulfillment  of  their 
duty,  at  the  promotion  of  Thy  glory,  and  the  advancement  of 
the  welfare  of  our  country.  And  gTant  that  the  course  of 
this  world  may  be  so  peaceably  ordered  by  Thy  governance, 
that  Thy  Church,  and  this  whole  people,  may  joyfully  serve 
Thee  in  all  godly  quietness,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
Amen. 


A  Prayer  for  those  ivho  have  gone  forth  to  war  in  defense  of 
their  State  and  Country. 
O  Most  Gracious  Lord  God,  our  Heavenly  Father,  we 
commend  to  Thy  care  and  protection  Thy  servants,  who  in 
behalf  of  their  families  and  their  country  have  gone  forth  to 
meet  the  dangers  of  war.     Direct  and  lead  them  in  safety ; 


21 

bless  them  in  their  efforts  to  protect  and  defend  this  land ; 
preserve  them  from  the  violence  of  the  sword  and  from  sick- 
ness; from  injurious  accidents;  from  treachery  and  from 
surprise ;  from  carelessness  of  duty,  from  confusion  and  fear ; 
from  mutiny  and  disorder,  from  evil  living,  and  from  forget- 
f ulness  of  Thee.  Enable  them  to  return  in  safety  and  honor ; 
that  we  being  defended  from  those  who  would  do  us  hurt, 
may  rejoice  in  Thy  mercies,  and  Thy  Church  give  Thee 
thanks  in  Peace  and  Truth,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 
Amen. 


A  Prayer  for  the  People  of  the  Confederate  States. 

O  Lord,  our  God,  Who  rulest  over  all  the  Hosts  of  Heaven, 
and  over  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Thou  hast  power  to  cast 
down,  or  to  raise  up  whomsoever  Thou  wilt,  and  to  save  by 
many  or  by  few ;  and  we  now  come  to  Thee  to  help  and  de- 
fend us  in  this  time  of  danger  and  necessity.  We  acknowl- 
edge and  lament,  O  God,  the  many  gi'ievous  sins,  by  which  we 
have  justly  provoked  Thy  wrath  and  indignation,  and  wert 
Thou  extreme  to  mark  iniquities,  O  Lord,  we  could  not 
abide  it.  But  it  is  Thy  nature  and  property  ever  to  have 
mercy  and  to  forgive ;  and  we  beseech  Thee  now  to  extend  to 
ns  Thine  accustomed  mercy,  and  to  deliver  us  from  the  evils 
and  dangers  to  which  we  are  exposed.  Do  Thou,  O  Lord, 
remove  from  our  borders  all  invading  armies;  confound  the 
devices  of  such  as  would  do  us  hurt,  and  send  us  speedily  a 
just  and  honorable  and  lasting  peace.  And  above  every 
earthly  blessing  give  us,  as  a  people,  grace  to  know,  and  love, 
and  serve  Thee,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.     Amen. 


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Copies  of  this  Address  can  be  obtained  of 

Alfred  Williams  &  Go.,  Raleigh 
Rev.  Francis  M.  Osborne,  Charlotte 

At  25  cents  a  copy 


Sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  Bishop  Atkinson 
Memorial  Church,  Charlotte 


